I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS

by Michael Davies

b. Doctrinal
Authority.

Our Lord invested His Church with a doctrinal authority enabling her to teach
with infallible certainty all that He has revealed. "And I will ask the Father:
and he shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever:
the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not,
nor knoweth Him." (John 14: 16-17). "He that heareth you heareth Me" (Luke 10:
16). The Church is "the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:
15).

Infallibility is the impossibility of falling into error. The Church is
infallible in her office of teaching, owing to the perpetual assistance of the
Holy Ghost promised to her by Our Lord, when, either in the exercise of her
Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, or by a solemn pronouncement of the supreme
authority, she proposes, for the acceptance of all, truths of faith or morals
that are either revealed in themselves or connected with revelation. The supreme
authority of the Church, her Extraordinary Magisterium, can be exercised by the
Roman Pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra,that is, when by virtue of his supreme
apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held
by the universal Church. The definitions of a General Council also constitute an
exercise of the Extraordinary Magisterium and are infallible, providing they are
ratified by the Pope. But the Pope does not require the ratification of a
General Council or of the bishops of the Church for his own definitions.
Pastor Ęternus, the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ
of the First Vatican Council, teaches that "such definitions of the Roman
Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not in virtue of the consent of the
Church."

Pastor Ęternus declared the extent of infallible teaching to be the
same for the Pope and the Church. Some Catholics imagine that all the teaching
of the Extraordinary Magisterium is infallible automatically. This is not
correct. Pastor Ęternus restricts this assistance to definitions, and
these definitions must be concerned with faith or morals (in definienda
doctrina de fide vel moribus). The definition must bind the Universal Church
(ab universa Ecclesia tenendam definit). Decrees which bind only part of
the Church are not definitions: but only those which command the assent of
all the faithful. The definition must constitute an explicit final, and
irrevocable judgement, binding the entire Church to an irrevocable internal
assent. A definition does not need to be imposed under pain of anathema in order
to be infallible, although this is a common method of indicating that the
supreme authority has made a final decision. All that is necessary is that it
should be the clear intention of the supreme authority to settle the matter
forever. This is because no believer who pays due attention to Christ's promises
can refuse to assent with absolute and irrevocable certainty to a definition of
the Extraordinary Magisterium. Teaching which must be accepted with this degree
of certainty is referred to as of divine and Catholic faith (de fide divina
et catholica). A truth thus defined is a "Dogma of the Faith", and its
pertinacious rejection is called "heresy". (A detailed examination of the nature
of heresy is provided below).

In its Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, the First Vatican Council
taught that: "All those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith
which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the
Church, either by a solemn judgement or by her ordinary and universal teaching
(Magisterium), proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed." Infallible
teaching is not, therefore, confined to pronouncements of the Extraordinary
Magisterium. All that is necessary is an indication of the manifest will of the
bishops, teaching in union with the Pope, either assembled in a general council
or scattered throughout the world, to propose a teaching of faith or morals as
one which must be held by all the faithful.

Although a Catholic incurs ipso facto excommunication only by the
pertinacious denial of doctrine that is de fide divina et catholica, he
is bound in conscience to receive other doctrinal decrees concerning faith and
morals that are issued by the Apostolic See, because of the obedience we owe to
that See which exercises an authority given to it by Christ. This non-infallible
teaching on faith and morals must be accepted not simply with an absence of
external opposition, that is a reverent silence (silentium obsequiosum),
but with an inner assent (assensus internus). By way of exception, the
obligation of inner agreement may cease if a competent expert, after a renewed
scientific investigation of all grounds, arrives at a positive conviction that
the decision rests on error. Such an exception could apply only to teaching
which was in itself a novelty and appeared impossible to reconcile with previous
authoritative teaching. The ordinary and usual form of the papal teaching
authority is not infallible, neither is the teaching of the Roman Congregations.
It is of interest to note that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council
contained no infallible definitions, and any teaching in its documents that is
binding de fide divina et catholica possesses this status in virtue of
some previous infallible pronouncement, and not because it is included in a
Vatican II document.